James Gray

Writer-director James Gray made his mark on the independent film world with a number of acclaimed dramas that explored his interest in human behavior; in particular, loyalty among families, tribes and...
Read More...

U.S. actress Linda Gray has signed up to make Cinderella's dreams come true in a traditional British pantomime this Christmas (14). The Dallas star will play the Fairy Godmother in the family-orientated production of Cinderella in London for five weeks from next month (Dec14).
She arrived in the U.K. on Monday (17Nov14) for a costume fitting and told fans on Twitter.com she is excited about taking part in her first pantomime, which launches on 5 December (14).
The show will not be Gray's first performance on the London stage - in 2001, she played seductress Mrs. Robinson in a West End production of The Graduate.
Gray was able to sign up for the panto after her TV drama Dallas was cancelled earlier this year (14).
The actress isn't the only star preparing to make magic as Cinderella's Fairy Godmother - Helena Bonham Carter will play the character in Sir Kenneth Branagh's movie version of the fairytale, starring Cate Blanchett and Lily James.

WENN
Nobody could have predicted this amidst the Twilight hysteria that started in 2008, but Robert Pattinson is getting some serious indie cred under his belt. Having worked with directors like David Cronenberg, Francis Lewis, and James Gray over the past few years, it's safe to say that Pattinson has made serious strides since his role as Edward Cullen. Next up—a gangsta film with Harmony Korine? Yes, this is real.
Pattinson reached out to the Spring Breakers writer/director some time ago and has since confirmed that Korine wrote a Miami-set gangster movie for him. There are no other details at this time, but with these two names on board, there's already plenty reason to get excited about this project.
Follow @Hollywood_com Follow @shannonmhouston

Heavy rockers Avenged Sevenfold were triple winners at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards on Wednesday night (23Apr14). The band's stars Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance were jointly awarded the Dimebag Darrell Best Guitarist prize, while Arin Illejay was named Best Drummer. The group was also awarded the title for Most Devoted Fans.
Meanwhile, Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme was declared Best Vocalist, Rob Zombie took Best Live Band, Deep Purple claimed the Comeback of the Year accolade and Twelve Foot Ninja earned recognition as Best New Talent.
Five Finger Death Punch were two-time winners, scoring the Paul Gray Best Bassist Award for Chris Kael and Song of the Year for Lift Me Up.
It was also a big night for Ozzy Osbourne and his Black Sabbath bandmates, who celebrated their comeback with the Album of the Year honour for 13.
Joan Jett made awards history as the first female recipient of the Golden God Award and Axl Rose was feted with the Ronnie James Dio Lifetime Achievement Award.
Rose also treated guests to a special reunion performance with his former Guns N' Roses pal Duff McKagan, who recently stepped in to the line-up to temporarily replace bassist Tommy Stinson, while another highlight of the heavy metal awards show came from Slayer, who delivered a surprise three-song set to open the ceremony. They also debuted new track Implode, their first new material since the death of guitarist Jeff Hanneman last year (13).

Members of Britain's most famous theatrical families will come together on the London stage when Vanessa Redgrave's granddaughter makes her debut alongside Jack Fox. Daisy Bevan, daughter of Nip/Tuck star Joely Richardson, is following her mother and grandmother into the family business after landing a leading role in a stage production of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.
The title character will be played by Fox, who is also a member of one of the U.K.'s most famous acting dynasties - his father is James Fox, his brother is Lawrence Fox, and he is the cousin of Freddie and Emilia Fox.
It will also mark the actor's professional stage debut, and Fox admits he has asked his father for advice.
He tells the London Evening Standard newspaper, "He has wonderful pearls of wisdom. He said, 'Think about what your character wants in every scene and if you do that you will be able to get into his head a little bit'. My dad's a model professional and a perfect dad. He's my idol. My family have always been there for me."
Bevan is equally as thrilled to get her big break in theatre: "I was very excited to get my first theatre job. The world of theatre is so different from film acting. Being in a rehearsal room is electrifyingly exciting. But there's an added pressure because of the work my family does. What if I'm the black sheep, the one who can't do it?"
The play will open at the Riverside Studios in London on Thursday (17Apr14).

Summit Entertainment via Everett Collection
Beneath the many tiers of convoluted sci-fi world building that make up the skin of Divergent, there is what might pass for a simple and humane heart: the message that a person should be more than "just one thing." That the truly worthwhile among us won't fit so snugly into the rigid compartments instituted by society — both ours and that of Future Chicago — because "not fitting in," as it turns out, is actually a better gig. That in Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley), we — the silent majority of outcasts — have a new idol to vocalize the values in being different. But it's really difficult to attach yourself to a character like Tris with writing this terrible.
Although the parameters of her role would logically allow for enough personality, imagination, and good old fashioned chutzpah to make Tris a relatable human being, there is almost no personality to be found in the script's version of the hero. The entire Divergent world is lacking in this area, in fact. From the onset of her introductory voice-over (almost forgivable, because there might actually be no other way to introduce a society so cluelessly complicated), we can feel something lacking in the construction of the film's hero. Tris explains the nature of the five societal factions that exist in Future Chicago — Dauntless (the brave), Abnegation (the selfless), Erudite (the intelligent), and two others that don't really come into play, mentioning with a foreboding tone that those who don't belong to any faction are shunned by the world and cast to desolation (that's her, if you don't already know). But in these crucial opening minutes, Tris' exposition is as lifeless as it is brainless. Starting with Erudite, Tris fawns like an empty-headed child, "They know everything." A regrettably imbecilic line, but probably the peak of the character's nuance. From there, we get very little out of Tris, or any other of Divergent's citizens, that isn't cold, bloodless exposition and the action necessary to courier it to a sating box office end game.
Summit Entertainment via Everett Collection
No one in this story about "being yourself" feels at all like he or she has a self to be. Run through the gears of a world too insistently mechanical to evoke anything real (despite the generosity of its central "fitting in" conceit), the people end up flat, thin, and dry, never once uttering a line of dialogue that is in any way personal... or in any small way not tailored to the larger game of misguided set-up at play. Against this backdrop, a pronounced Tris Prior might have been doubly effective. But it's not some grand schematic on the part of director Neil Burger and screenwriters Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor to paint a gray world behind a glimmering hero. It's just an ostensible inability to draw anything human.
There are a couple of reasons why we hesitate to call Tris a truly terrible character. The first is Woodley. With so little to work with, she is, admittedly, good. Her action carries weight, her tears beget ours, and we do actually root for her to come out okay. All of the charm we're accrediting to Tris is Woodley's doing, and we know from past turns that with a better script in her hands this rising star could do wonders. The second is that, in outline form, Tris might be the best YA heroine we've gotten lately. Her decisions stem from a drive for independence and personal fulfillment. True, her primarily relationship is with a brooding jock, the unfortunately named Four (Theo James), to whom she plays the eager therapist more than anything else. But she also has a somewhat empowering bond with her mother (Ashley Judd) and an admittedly under cooked but at the very least occasionally present rapport with faction-mate Christina (Zoe Kravitz). So... something.
Without a real character in which to root these small victories, though, they amount to very little. Just additional slices of the soulless, joyless, mindless deep dish pie that is this movies. But Chicago's dystopian fiction fails the same way that its pizza does: over stuffed with empty calories and lacking any recognizable flavor.
Follow @Michael Arbeiter
| Follow @Hollywood_com

DreamWorks
For the bulk of every Rocky and Bullwinkle episode, moose and squirrel would engage in high concept escapades that satirized geopolitics, contemporary cinema, and the very fabrics of the human condition. With all of that to work with, there's no excuse for why the pair and their Soviet nemeses haven't gotten a decent movie adaptation. But the ingenious Mr. Peabody and his faithful boy Sherman are another story, intercut between Rocky and Bullwinkle segments to teach kids brief history lessons and toss in a nearly lethal dose of puns. Their stories and relationship were much simpler, which means that bringing their shtick to the big screen would entail a lot more invention — always risky when you're dealing with precious material.
For the most part, Mr. Peabody &amp; Sherman handles the regeneration of its heroes aptly, allowing for emotionally substance in their unique father-son relationship and all the difficulties inherent therein. The story is no subtle metaphor for the difficulties surrounding gay adoption, with society decreeing that a dog, no matter how hyper-intelligent, cannot be a suitable father. The central plot has Peabody hosting a party for a disapproving child services agent and the parents of a young girl with whom 7-year-old Sherman had a schoolyard spat, all in order to prove himself a suitable dad. Of course, the WABAC comes into play when the tots take it for a spin, forcing Peabody to rush to their rescue.
Getting down to personals, we also see the left brain-heavy Peabody struggle with being father Sherman deserves. The bulk of the emotional marks are hit as we learn just how much Peabody cares for Sherman, and just how hard it has been to accept that his only family is growing up and changing.
DreamWorks
But more successful than the new is the film's handling of the old — the material that Peabody and Sherman purists will adore. They travel back in time via the WABAC Machine to Ancient Egypt, the Renaissance, and the Trojan War, and 18th Century France, explaining the cultural backdrop and historical significance of the settings and characters they happen upon, all with that irreverent (but no longer racist) flare that the old cartoons enjoyed. And oh... the puns.
Mr. Peabody &amp; Sherman is a f**king treasure trove of some of the most amazingly bad puns in recent cinema. This effort alone will leave you in awe.
The film does unravel in its final act, bringing the science-fiction of time travel a little too close to the forefront and dropping the ball on a good deal of its emotional groundwork. What seemed to be substantial building blocks do not pay off in the way we might, as scholars of animated family cinema, have anticipated, leaving the movie with an unfinished feeling.
But all in all, it's a bright, compassionate, reasonably educational, and occasionally funny if not altogether worthy tribute to an old favorite. And since we don't have our own WABAC machine to return to a time of regularly scheduled Peabody and Sherman cartoons, this will do okay for now.
If nothing else, it's worth your time for the puns.
3/5
Follow @Michael Arbeiter
//
| Follow @Hollywood_com
//

FOX Broadcasting Co.
The first three episodes of The Following's second season have aired, and I have to say that it seems to be much of the same that made the first season sink into the morass that reduced it to "How Dumb Is This Thing Going to Become?" status. I am issuing early warning here that I will be saying some spoilery things from these episodes, so if you haven't watched them... close out of this piece now.
Let's review what has exactly happened. A new cult, or a splinter of the old one, has come to New York on the anniversary of Joe Carroll's (James Purefoy) death to try to lure him out of hiding. He apparently survived the explosion from last season's finale. They wear really creepy masks of Carroll. This is a fact that has escaped the totally annoying Emma (Valorie Curry), the one cult member that survived that whole season-ending bloodbath despite her BEING THE ONE I WANTED DEAD THE MOST. She's no longer wearing a pixie cut, instead going with a Lisbeth Salander goth look. The ones trying to get Carroll include a pair of French twins who like to kill people and then talk to them after their death, with one of them looking exactly like Christian Bale's character in American Psycho. In fact, I expect him to suddenly start talking about Genesis' Invisible Touch album.
Yeah, Carroll's alive. He's been livingin some rural town with a hooker (Carrie Preston) and her daughter, sporting a beard and baseball cap in the world's worst homage to Robert De Niro's Deer Hunter, replete with the most horrifying attempt at a southern accent. Of course, the show nudges Carroll to come out of hiding to New York. To me, it doesn't feel surprising when Carroll finally roars (or does his best imitation of roaring), "I. AM. INEVITABLE!" and then mercifully kills a priest who had discovered Carroll's real identity. No, he doesn't kill him by talking him to death, which is surprising, since Carroll loves the sound of his voice and talks and talks and talks and makes me glad I have a hearing aid to turn off to mute him. The show tries to make the killing a moral gray area, since the priest actually isn't that great of a guy because he keeps sleeping with the prostitute and leers at her daughter. But Carroll's first kill in a year doesn't make us feel anything, because we were all waiting for him to do that. A pacifistic Joe Carroll makes this show even more mundane than ever.
In the third episode, Carroll kills his hooker girlfriend after she finds the dead body of the priest. Actually, no, her daughter does it, since she is smitten with him despite his track record of, you know, KILLING WOMEN. They torch the place while Ben E. King's "Stand By Me" plays in the background, one of the most ludicrous background songs I think I've ever heard given the context. I love that song. I think this severely hurt that.
Let's not forget the the tired trope of Lily Gray, one of the first victims of the subway attack in the first episode, played by Connie Nielsen, turning out to be a follower herself. Add the fact that it had one of those aggravating chases, you know, where a pursuee (Hardy) is chasing someone (Gray) at full speed while the other person walks at an ambling gait a mere 20 feet ahead on a street and STILL DOESN'T CATCH HER. Yes, that happens here. Oh... and she's the mother of those two psycho twins. Of course.
Oh yes, how can we forget Kevin Bacon and his character of Ryan Hardy. You see, he's still obsessed with Joe Carroll, even going as far as to enlist his niece to help him out. But he's not revealing anything to law enforcement, including his former partner last season, Ice. His refusal to do so put quite a few people at risk, but he's just so tortured that he keeps all the info to himself. Bacon seems to be doing all the filming with a "I'm being paid by direct deposit, RIGHT?" expression. It's amazing he's gone three episodes thus far and hasn't been punched by someone.
I admit that I am already slipping back into my hate-watching mood when watching. Relax, dude. It's just a show. Just be entertained. The thing is, there has to be even a semblance of intelligence to even do that. When I see how sloppy the FBI seems to be in corralling these criminals, I shake my head. If they were this bad in real life, the United States would be taken over by another country in five minutes. So all I can do now is watch more and see if the show continues yet another downward spiral. Then we may be spared a third season.
Also, I'm sure that Bacon knows that his wife, Kyra Sedgwick, would have solved all this in two episodes of The Closer.
Follow @Hollywood_com
//
Follow @literateartist
//

Lions Gate via Everett Collection
When we last left our heroes, they had conquered all opponents in the 74th Annual Hunger Games, returned home to their newly refurbished living quarters in District 12, and fallen haplessly to the cannibalism of PTSD. And now we're back! Hitching our wagons once again to laconic Katniss Everdeen and her sweet-natured, just-for-the-camera boyfriend Peeta Mellark as they gear up for a second go at the Capitol's killing fields.
But hold your horses — there's a good hour and a half before we step back into the arena. However, the time spent with Katniss and Peeta before the announcement that they'll be competing again for the ceremonial Quarter Quell does not drag. In fact, it's got some of the film franchise's most interesting commentary about celebrity, reality television, and the media so far, well outweighing the merit of The Hunger Games' satire on the subject matter by having Katniss struggle with her responsibilities as Panem's idol. Does she abide by the command of status quo, delighting in the public's applause for her and keeping them complacently saturated with her smiles and curtsies? Or does Katniss hold three fingers high in opposition to the machine into which she has been thrown? It's a quarrel that the real Jennifer Lawrence would handle with a castigation of the media and a joke about sandwiches, or something... but her stakes are, admittedly, much lower. Harvey Weinstein isn't threatening to kill her secret boyfriend.
Through this chapter, Katniss also grapples with a more personal warfare: her devotion to Gale (despite her inability to commit to the idea of love) and her family, her complicated, moralistic affection for Peeta, her remorse over losing Rue, and her agonizing desire to flee the eye of the public and the Capitol. Oftentimes, Katniss' depression and guilty conscience transcends the bounds of sappy. Her soap opera scenes with a soot-covered Gale really push the limits, saved if only by the undeniable grace and charisma of star Lawrence at every step along the way of this film. So it's sappy, but never too sappy.
In fact, Catching Fire is a masterpiece of pushing limits as far as they'll extend before the point of diminishing returns. Director Francis Lawrence maintains an ambiance that lends to emotional investment but never imposes too much realism as to drip into territories of grit. All of Catching Fire lives in a dreamlike state, a stark contrast to Hunger Games' guttural, grimacing quality that robbed it of the life force Suzanne Collins pumped into her first novel.
Once we get to the thunderdome, our engines are effectively revved for the "fun part." Katniss, Peeta, and their array of allies and enemies traverse a nightmare course that seems perfectly suited for a videogame spin-off. At this point, we've spent just enough time with the secondary characters to grow a bit fond of them — deliberately obnoxious Finnick, jarringly provocative Johanna, offbeat geeks Beedee and Wiress — but not quite enough to dissolve the mystery surrounding any of them or their true intentions (which become more and more enigmatic as the film progresses). We only need adhere to Katniss and Peeta once tossed in the pit of doom that is the 75th Hunger Games arena, but finding real characters in the other tributes makes for a far more fun round of extreme manhunt.
But Catching Fire doesn't vie for anything particularly grand. It entertains and engages, having fun with and anchoring weight to its characters and circumstances, but stays within the expected confines of what a Hunger Games movie can be. It's a good one, but without shooting for succinctly interesting or surprising work with Katniss and her relationships or taking a stab at anything but the obvious in terms of sending up the militant tyrannical autocracy, it never even closes in on the possibility of being a great one.
3.5/5
Follow @Michael Arbeiter
//
| Follow @Hollywood_com
//

Actor Joaquin Phoenix has found love with a DJ 20 years his junior. The Walk the Line star, 39, sparked rumours of a new romance over the weekend (09-10Nov13) after he was photographed with his arm around a mystery blonde while enjoying a stroll in Rome, Italy.
The lady has now been identified as 19-year-old Allie Teilz, who joined Phoenix and his filmmaker pal James Gray during a visit to tourist hotspots San Pietro and Gianicolo hill.
Phoenix, who previously dated actress Liv Tyler, is currently in Europe promoting his new movie, Her, directed by Spike Jonze.

Marvel/Twentieth Century Fox Film
Even after 13 years of playing Logan (also known as Wolverine), it appears as if Hugh Jackman has not tired of the claw-bearing character. According to Deadline, Jackman and director James Mangold are in negotiations to make another Wolverine film.
While Jackman might have a few more gray hairs than he did when he started his X-Men journey, it comes as no surprise that 20th Century Fox is looking to tag him in for another film in the franchise, especially since The Wolverine hit box-office heaven. Bringing in over $413 million worldwide, the film now stands as the second highest grossing X-Men film ever (coming in just behind Brett Ratner's X-Men: The Last Stand).
The storyline has not been revealed as of yet, but Mangold is set to pen the sequel. And for those who need their Wolverine fix sooner than later, Bryan Singer's X-Men: Days of Future Past is set to hit theaters May 23, 2014.
Follow @CaseyRackham
//
Follow @hollywood_com
//

Title

Re-teamed with Joaquin Phoenix for "Two Lovers"; earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Director

Nominated for the 2009 Independent Spirit Award for Best Director ("Two Lovers")

Debut short film, "Cowboys and Angels"

Directed Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg in "We Own the Night"

Made his film debut, "Little Odessa," about a hit man confronted by his younger brother upon returning to his hometown

Directed second film, "The Yards"

Summary

Writer-director James Gray made his mark on the independent film world with a number of acclaimed dramas that explored his interest in human behavior; in particular, loyalty among families, tribes and lovers. Gray was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for his first feature, "Little Odessa" (1994), and from that film's gritty setting in Brooklyn's Russian Mafia underworld, he went into the seedy New York club scene for "We Own The Night" (2007), starring Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg. When Gray boldly moved away from crime dramas towards romance with "Two Lovers" (2009), more accolades were forthcoming, proving that the filmmaker was skilled enough to create absorbing, emotionally complex characters that were not necessarily packing heat.<p>Gray was born in New York City in 1969 and raised in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens. As a child, he dreamed of becoming a painter, but that all changed when he saw "Apocalypse Now" (1979) and "Raging Bull" (1980), and was inspired by how filmmaking could combine multiple forms of art into one work. He became a movie junkie, often skipping school to visit art houses in a quest to learn all he could about American and European film history. Despite his less-than-stellar attendance record, Gray maintained his academics enough to get accepted into the prestigious University of Southern California Film School, where he delved deeper into film theory. He graduated with a BFA in Film in 1991. That year, his short film, "Cowboys and Angels," showcased a promising filmmaker and helped him secure an agent and his first bit of industry attention.<p>He made his feature film debut with the 1994 indie "Little Odessa," about an icy hit man (Tim Roth) for the Russian Mafia who returns to his old neighborhood in Brooklyn for a quick kill and finds himself getting drawn back into family relationships, including with his ailing mother (Vanessa Redgrave), estranged father (Maximillian Schell), and the younger brother (Edward Furlong) who idolizes him. An impressive first film that achieved a solemn, thoughtful tone and offered excellent performances, "Little Odessa" won the Silver Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, the Critics Award at the Deauville Film Festival, and Independent Spirit Award nominations for Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay.<p>In 1998, Gray began shooting his follow-up, "The Yards" (2000), based on a screenplay he wrote about the politics and corruption involved in the New York City transit system. When Gray was growing up, his father was an electronic parts manufacturer who was a supplier to the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and his stories of the shady deal-making and violence involved inspired Gray's storyline. Set in a subway train yard in Queens, "The Yards" made its debut at Cannes in 2000 and starred Mark Wahlberg as an ex-con looking for honest work who joins his uncle (James Caan) in what turns out to be the dangerous and dishonest business. The film only received limited release, but it cemented Gray's gelling reputation as a visual, detail-oriented director who elicited top-notch performances from his cast, which in this case included Joaquin Phoenix, Charlize Theron and Ellen Burstyn.<p>Seedy New York underworlds and the pitfalls of family businesses continued to provide inspiration for writer-director Gray, who next hit theaters in 2007 with "We Own The Night." Gray paired two of his favorite actors, Wahlberg and Phoenix, to play brothers on opposite sides of the law who agree to join forces to avenge the death of their father (Robert Duvall). The crime drama was one of the most commercially popular films on Gray's resume, but for his next project he made a decision to put aside the guns and murder that usually factored into his plots and make a film about love and desire. The creative leap re-invigorated his critical standing, and Gray earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Director for "Two Lovers" (2009), which starred Joaquin Phoenix as an unstable man drawn to two very different women - Gwyneth Paltrow as a lawyer who carries on an affair with her married boss, and Vinessa Shaw as a more stable option whose father will bring him into their family business if the pair marries.<p>Critics applauded "Two Lovers," though unfortunately the film's promotional efforts were overshadowed by bizarre appearances by Phoenix, including a severely bearded, bloated and dazed guest spot in David Letterman's interview chair. While the appearance on "The Late Show with David Letterman" (CBS, 1993- ) was a hot YouTube selection, the odd antics failed to do justice to the film. When Phoenix went on to announce his retirement from acting to pursue a rap career, "Two Lovers" became his swan song, and an impressive achievement to go out on. Gray also made a marked change at the time, opting to finally leaving his Brooklyn-set stories behind in favor of South America. He scripted "The Lost City of Z" (2010), based on the actual story of an early 20th century explorer who was obsessed with finding unknown civilizations in the Amazon jungle before eventually going mad. Gray's biggest budget outing to date partnered him with co-producer Brad Pitt, who also starred.

Name

Role

Comments

Education

Name

University of Southern California

Notes

"He is compulsive, neurotic and brilliant!" - James Caan on James Gray, quoted by Liz Smith in her syndicated column, Oct. 18, 2000